Chinese tech giant Alibaba is reportedly banning employees from using Claude Code, the AI coding assistant developed by Anthropic. According to multiple reports, the new policy will take effect on July 10. The company has reportedly classified Claude Code as high-risk software and has instructed staff to use Alibaba’s own AI coding tool, Qoder, instead.
The reported decision comes as Anthropic continues to restrict access to its AI models for companies based in China and foreign businesses owned by Chinese firms. The AI company has been tightening its security measures to prevent unauthorized access and reduce the risk of model misuse.
Recent online discussions also claimed that a version of Claude Code could identify users from China. These reports gained attention after a Reddit post suggested the software contained hidden detection methods designed to stop unauthorized usage. However, Anthropic explained that the feature was part of a temporary security experiment rather than user surveillance.
Responding to the reports, Thariq Shihipar of Anthropic shared an official statement on X:
“An experiment we launched in March that was meant to prevent account abuse from unauthorized resellers and protect against distillation. The team has landed stronger mitigations since then and we’ve actually been meaning to take this down for a while.”
The statement clarifies that the experiment focused on preventing unauthorized resellers and protecting Anthropic’s AI models from distillation, a process where competing AI systems are trained using another model’s outputs.
Alibaba has not publicly commented on the reported internal ban. If implemented, the move highlights the growing competition between global AI developers and China’s push to rely on domestic AI tools such as Qoder.
